On Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 6PM, four 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grants are officially being announced by the Avery Fisher Artist Program’s Chairman, Joseph W. Polisi, Nancy Fisher, and Charles Avery Fisher. The recipients being honored at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR are Xavier Foley, double-bassist; Francisco Fullana, violinist; Drew Petersen, pianist; and the Calidore String Quartet. Also being announced is that with this event, Joseph W. Polisi concludes his tenure as Chairman of the Avery Fisher Artist Program, and that Deborah Borda, President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic, will become the Program’s new Chair. Watch on Facebook live.

Following the announcement will be performances by three of the four Career Grant recipients. The fourth recipient, the Calidore String Quartet, is in the midst of a European tour, and will be represented in absence by a short video excerpt, provided courtesy of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The Career Grant performances are recorded for live webstream and radio broadcast by WQXR, New York’s classical music station, with host Elliott Forrest, and will air on Tuesday, April 24 at 9 pm on 105.9 FM and www.wqxr.org. The 2018 Career Grant presentation marks the continuation of a long-standing New York philanthropic tradition created by Avery Fisher, which includes a relationship spanning over four decades with WQXR, a broadcast partner of these festivities since the first Career Grants were awarded in 1976. Showcasing Career Grant awardees for the eighth consecutive year, WNET Thirteen will spotlight 2018 Career Grant recipients on its program NYC-ARTS.

Since 1976, 149 Career Grants have been awarded (including this year’s grants), and all recipients are currently active musicians. Former Career Grant recipients include pianists Jonathan Biss and Yuja Wang; clarinetist Anthony McGill; violinists James Ehnes and Hilary Hahn; and The Dover Quartet.

The Avery Fisher Artist Program, established by the late Avery Fisher as part of a major gift to Lincoln Center in 1974, serves as a monument to Mr. Fisher’s philanthropy and love of music. The Career Grants in particular exemplify his devotion to helping young artists and embody his philosophy to give back to the world what music had given to him. The Program supporting instrumentalists and chamber ensembles who must be U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents continues to provide recognition in two categories: The Career Grants, given annually, and the Prize, given less frequently as the highest form of recognition for excellence and contributions to classical music. The Avery Fisher Artist Program is committed to all forms of diversity, with award recipients being chosen based on outstanding artistic merit. Final selections are made by the Program’s Executive Committee.

Avery Fisher Career Grants of the Avery Fisher Artist Program are designed to give professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists, as well as chamber ensembles, who the Recommendation Board and Executive Committee of the Avery Fisher Artist Program believe to have great potential for major careers. Each recipient receives an award of $25,000, to be used for specific needs in advancing a career. Additionally, the Career Grant ceremony performances are professionally recorded for the recipients’ unrestricted use, posted on the Program’s website, broadcast and webstreamed by WQXR and used by WNET Thirteen’s NYC Arts. As of 2016, recipients also receive a custom designed blue and gold rosette, given as a physical symbol of the Career Grant award. Up to five Avery Fisher Career Grants may be given each year. Recipients are nominated by the Program's Recommendation Board, made up of nationally known instrumentalists, conductors, composers, music educators, managers and presenters.

CALIDORE STRING QUARTET "They are part of a groundswell of superbly trained, vibrant young string quartets, think Dover, Brooklyn Rider, Attacca and others, whose uncompromising standards have invigorated the classical music scene in recent years...Four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one…The grateful audience left enriched and, I suspect, a little more human than it arrived. The Calidore Quartet is something else.” The Washington Post

In addition to the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Calidore has amassed an unprecedented amount of chamber music’s most prestigious awards from North America and Europe.

2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award 2017 BBC New Generation Artist Scheme 2016 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition $100,000 Grand Prize 2016 Three-year residency with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center II 2012 Top prizes in ARD Munich and Hamburg International String Quartet Competitions DREW PETERSEN "...his account of Rachmaninov’s First Concerto was the best of the six performances in the final by some distance, and he perfectly captured the music’s youthful ebullience and glitter." The Guardian

Acclaimed 24-year-old American pianist Drew Petersen is a sought-after soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Winner of the 2017 American Pianists Awards and the Christel DeHaan Fellow of the American Pianists Association, and also Artist-In-Residence at the University of Indianapolis, he has been praised for his commanding and poetic performances of repertoire ranging from Bach to Zaimont. He will release his debut album for the Steinway & Sons record label in Spring 2018. Mr. Petersen's firm belief in the importance of music in contemporary global society led him to collaborations with Young Audiences NY presenting performances in NYC Public Schools. A tireless advocate for the necessity of classical music and other arts in society, he was named a 2006 Davidson Fellow for his portfolio entitled “Keeping Classical Music Alive.” His singular talent has been profiled in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and the documentary "Just Normal" by award-winning director Kim A. Snyder. Drew Petersen is currently a candidate in the Artist Diploma program at The Juilliard School, studying under Robert McDonald.